The Last Laugh

Jan 16, 2020 — Deep Dives The question that was asked of the great actors and actresses of silent film with the coming of sound was simple: Could they speak? Could they adapt the styles they had developed to the demands of dialogue and...

Dec 30, 2019 — We asked some of our friends if they had underappreciated films from the past decade that they wanted to champion. Here’s what they chose.

Nov 11, 2019 — This month we’re reading about the women (and men) of Hollywood, weighing arguments from all corners, and picking up an overlooked novel.

Oct 16, 2019 — Deep Dives “I have a feeling that the really crucial moments in a film should be wordless,” the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray once said. He was speaking of his 1964 masterpiece Charulata, whose action consists largely of soulful looks passing...

Apr 23, 2019 — Elia Kazan can be and has been called many things: a cinematic genius, an actor’s director, a womanizer, a government stoolie, an uncompromising artist and three-time Academy Award winner. But whatever your opinion of his personality, his temperament, or his...

Mar 13, 2019 — Women’s stories are central to five of the six top prize winners.

Feb 4, 2019 — All four of this year’s top prizewinners have been directed or codirected by women.

Dec 8, 2018 — Bluebeard films, German theorists, Fassbinder’s attack, sensory experiences, and the world’s largest movie studio.

Oct 31, 2018 — Lists of favorites from a genre on the rise.

Jul 16, 2018 — In this essay originally published in the New Yorker, Roger Angell hails Ron Shelton’s comic ode to baseball as one of the few movies to capture the essence of the sport.